My name is Alexander Sierra, and I am a transgender student at UCF. In the Sept. 13 issue of the Future, on Page A10, on the bottom right corner, this was published:
"The president and most of the good ole boys on the BOT are somewhat conservative businessmen. Behind closed doors, I am sure they laugh at the idea of gender identity, as do most in their generation.
"I personally think it is odd and very abnormal human behavior to think one needs to be the opposite sex. I guess I don't really care about it, but it is very odd to me."
Though, clearly he cares enough to publicly say how laughable and odd he thinks we are.
It continues: "I just can't understand how a normally developed human being with a relatively normal social upbringing and environment would think that way, so I guess they are not normal in the development.
"Who cares? What 10 people really care about this? Has anyone ACTUALLY been discriminated against because of this issue? If so, please cite examples. If not, then why fight for ‘rights' that are not even needed."
It was signed only "anonymous."
So, Mr. Anonymous, please allow me to educate you.
There are, in fact, many people who care about this issue at UCF. In fact, more than 100 of them came out in support of equality for transgender students at UCF at the Senate meeting on Sept. 2. The Senate is for gender identity protections too, with an almost completely unanimous vote in favor of them. Even Maribeth Ehasz, vice president of Student Development and Enrollment Services, has vowed that the concerns of transgender students will continue to be a priority.
Do people get discriminated against because of this issue?
Mr. Anonymous, sir, people are killed in cold blood constantly just because they identify differently. Some people, unfortunately, do not show such restraint as you have shown, limiting their disdain for people like me to writing into their local newspaper, but instead take some steps ahead to rid the world of such laughable, abnormal and odd people. If they even see us as people at all. I could cite you some examples if you wished, but that doesn't even address the bigger issue here.
What difference does it make if there have been documented incidents or not? The fact that trying to protect a minority on campus stirs up so many feathers points, as do your comments, to how much ignorance around transgender issues there really is in this community.
What difference would it make to you if we were protected or not? What effect would it have on your existence, Mr. Anonymous? Absolutely none. Because clearly you know of no one who identifies as transgender.
I, for the life of me, don't think I will ever understand what it is about us that makes people so afraid. We have a different set of experiences, but fundamentally, we are the same as you. We breathe the same air, eat the same food, long for the same things. We struggle for a sense of identity not unlike most people who are college-aged, if in a more visible way.
You have a right to your opinion, just like anyone else, but my suggestion would be to learn a bit more about the topic before making such generalizations.
You see, every time someone does that publicly, it makes the transgender person struggling to find themselves take a step back from acceptance, and it gives the person who already thinks we're just a bunch of freaks another excuse to hate us.
I like to think of myself as a pretty good person. I don't lie or steal or cheat. I go to class, and I make good grades. I vote, I volunteer my spare time to help my community become a better place for LGBT people. I try my best to do the best I can every day, and there are people out there who will hate me anyway. Not because of the things I do or the person that I am, but because I was born female. I have upon me this label of transgender that they cannot and will not comprehend.
Let's be clear here, Mr. Anonymous. I'm not accusing you of hate. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are just uneducated about what transgender means. Transgender is an umbrella term, loosely defined as anyone who does not completely identify with the sex that they were born into. This covers a wide variety of identities, but the one most people focus on is transsexual. A Transsexual person has made a physical transition via hormones and or surgeries from one sex to the other.
Most, if not all, transsexual people know that their body does not match their identity at a very early age (around age 5) which coincides with most psychological research around child development. Societal pressure will typically lead us to keep our identities secret until a breaking point of some kind. A point where the true identity can no longer be hidden and the options are reduced to: live as who I really am, or commit suicide.
We realize that transitioning is an extremely difficult path and that it will put a stigma on us for life. We realize that people will react negatively toward us because of who we are. But the need to finally feel comfortable in our own bodies is so great that nothing else matters.
Now, I'm sorry, Mr. Anonymous, but I haven't come this far just to be called "laughable" and told that my "rights" don't matter by someone who doesn't even have the conviction to write his real name after his comments. To any transpeople that may be reading, you DO matter, and your rights ARE needed. And as long as I am on this campus, I will continue to fight for them and to fight the ignorance that exists here.
— Alexander Sierra
is a member of the 
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